During the manufacturing of devices (e.g., mechanical, electromechanical, and electrical devices), a fastener container is often utilized to provide fasteners to a fastener feeder for use in fastener driver operations. The fasteners are typically provided by the fastener feeder to a driver that drives the fastener (e.g., a screw, plug, bolt, rivet, etc.) to connect together components of the device being manufactured. As an example, fastener drivers are often used in large volume manufacturing for high-tech devices.
One example of a high-tech device that is often manufactured utilizing a fastener driver is a hard disk drive (HDD). A HDD typically includes a head disk assembly (HDA) including at least one magnetic disk, a disk clamp and a disk fastener to mount the disk to a spindle motor that rapidly rotates the disk, and a head stack assembly (HSA) that includes a moveable actuator arm and a head gimbal assembly (HGA) with a moveable transducer head for reading and writing data from and to the disk. During the manufacturing of a disk drive, a fastener driver may be utilized to attach components together of the disk drive being manufactured, such as, latches, ramps, disks, spindle motors, disk clamps, and various other HDA, HSA, and HGA components.
Due to the cost competiveness of the high-tech industry, and as an example of this, the disk drive industry, the components of a disk drive need to be assembled in a very precise and cost effective manner. In order to be cost effective, complex components of the disk drive, such as disk clamps, disks, spindle motors, HDAs, HGAs, etc., need to be assembled, with fasteners, such as screws, in a very time effective manner with a very low error rate—even though many of the components require highly precise assembly. Also, many of these types of components often need to be assembled in a clean room environment in which debris and contamination particles are kept to a minimum.
In high-tech manufacturing operations, such as, for disk drives, where cost and quality are crucial measurements, the refilling of fasteners to the fastener feeder for fastener driving operations is one of the main operational points at which large amounts of fasteners may be lost and at which contamination may occur. It has been observed that when fasteners are dropped onto the clean room of the manufacturing facility that many of the fasteners are damaged and have to be discarded. This significantly increases manufacturing costs. Further, these dropped fasteners also increase the amount of contamination in the manufacturing process. This is especially problematic for the manufacturing of high-tech devices, such as disk drives, in which both costs and the reduction of contamination is important. Unfortunately, when a fastener is dropped to the floor, contaminated particles often flow into the device being manufactured reducing device quality.
Accordingly, more efficient techniques for providing fasteners to a fastener feeder for use in fastener driving operations in the manufacturing of devices are sought after to reduce both manufacturing costs and to reduce debris and contamination.